


In Your Honor

by luninosity



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Bad Sex, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sex, Sexual Content, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-11
Updated: 2012-10-11
Packaged: 2017-11-16 03:02:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/534765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles isn't actually very good at sex *without* using telepathy to enhance the sensations. Erik wants to help. And then there's some frustration, some awkwardness, a lot of cuddling, and love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Your Honor

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for a prompt over at the kink meme that suggested that one of them, secretly, is very bad at sex. (I decided it was Charles, but actually it’s sort of both of them.) Title courtesy of a Foo Fighters song, as usual!

_mine is yours, and yours is mine_  
 _I will sacrifice_  
 _in your honor_  
 _I would die tonight_  
   
The problem isn’t that Charles is bad at sex. In fact, Charles is fantastically good at sex. Erik knows this firsthand. As it were.  
   
The problem is that Charles manages to be both fantastically good and, somehow, spectacularly terrible at sex. This is, apparently, the result of possessing the ability to always know exactly what his partner needs at any particular moment. Every move, every touch, every breath, ends up exactly tailored to the other person’s desires, because desire is one of the most powerful emotions and Charles is not opposed to indulging it.  
   
Which, Erik has to admit, is more or less the definition of fantastic. Especially when Charles feels the urge to indulge him on a chair, or up against a wall, or, on one memorable occasion, on the dining room table. No one else knows about that one, he’s fairly certain. Which is probably a good thing, because if anyone ever finds out, they might have to acquire a new table before group dinners ever happen again.  
   
But what this also means is that Charles is actually not very good at sex _without_ relying on his ability to know what the other person wants. He’s never had to learn.  
   
Erik discovers this by accident one night, when they’re stretched out across Charles’s bed, which, as Charles keeps telling him, is now _their_ bed, and it’s still so new that it’s hard to remember sometimes, but Charles reminds him often and Erik finds himself smiling every single time the word _ours_ gets thought between them, or said out loud.  
   
The antique midnight silence of the mansion wraps around them, and the silk sheets whisper cool against hot skin and urgent movements. The world, right now, has become just the two of them, and that’s more than Erik ever thought it could be. And Charles pauses and smiles like he’s heard that thought, and then goes back to what he’s been doing, which is making Erik extremely happy for very specific physical reasons.  
   
Charles has a very talented mouth, and he’s anticipating everything Erik wants, _more_ and _faster_ and _right there_ , and every spike of pleasure that runs through his body comes back amplified, because he can feel it in his head and in Charles’s thoughts, all that _want_ and _need_ and _yes_ , and the sensations are dizzying suddenly, leaving him off balance even though he’s lying down on the bed.  
   
Charles does something that sends explosions through every shaky nerve ending; it might be something physical, or something mental, Erik really can’t tell anymore, and a tidal wave of ecstasy that’s almost pain comes up and knocks them both over, and he’s lost track of how much of that is him and how much is not and which way leads to up again and he tries to say _stop_ but Charles has already pulled back so far that Erik can’t even hear him now. Of course he already knows.  
   
“Are you all right?” Charles scoots up the bed and looks at him, concerned, but leaves space between their bodies, as if he’s worried that any further contact will overwhelm them both again.  
   
It might be a legitimate concern. Erik’s still trying to remember how to breathe with his own lungs.  
   
He reaches out to pull Charles closer anyway. The solid feeling of Charles’s warmth pressed against him is worth it.  
   
“I’m sorry,” Charles says. “I usually have better control than that, I’m so sorry, are you all right? Say something, Erik.”  
   
“I’m all right.”  
   
“Oh, _good_ …” That expressive voice sounds excessively relieved. Erik wonders suddenly how much of the panic, in that moment, had been his, and how much had been Charles, frightened on his behalf.  
   
“I’m all right,” he says again, trying to project reassurance, and Charles almost smiles.  
   
“I really am sorry.”  
   
“I know. Don’t worry, Charles, please.”  
   
Charles curls up against him and rests his head on Erik’s shoulder. That can’t be very welcoming—Erik knows for a fact that he has terribly pointy shoulders—but Charles doesn’t seem to care. All the pillows are lying scattered in heaps around the floor, anyway.  
   
The old bones of the mansion, settling in the night, creak comfortably at them once or twice. In the pause after the noise stops, Charles says, “I’ll try to have better safeguards in place next time. It’s surprisingly difficult, you know, to hear certain things—to hear those things, at that moment—and not get lost in, well, everything.”  
   
Erik runs his fingers along Charles’s spine, idly counting vertebrae. “Can you…have you ever tried _not_ listening in?”  
   
Charles eyes him suspiciously, as if Erik has just started speaking a previously undiscovered language. “No…”  
   
“Would that be easier?”  
   
“I…really don’t think so, Erik.”  
   
“But you haven’t tried.”  
   
“Well, no…Are you saying that you don’t want me to know what you want me to do?”  
   
Erik takes an extra second to work through that sentence. Despite being the one of them who is the native speaker, Charles frequently has no respect for the English language. “I’m saying that that might be interesting, yes.”  
   
“I don’t think interesting is precisely the word I would choose.”  
   
“Think of it in terms of scientific discovery.”  
   
Charles sighs, already resigned but still trying to sound pathetic, evidently in the hope that Erik will have a change of heart. “I won’t know what you want me to do.”  
   
Erik raises his eyebrows at that. “You must have some ideas by now.” He certainly does; Charles has to, also, surely?  
   
“You can insist, but I’m warning you, it will be entirely your fault if we have terrible sex.”  
   
“I can accept that. But can we wait until morning to have the terrible sex? If you don’t mind.” He’s still a little bruised and a lot exhausted from the onslaught of sensation, and he’s pretty sure, from the unsuccessfully hidden yawn, that Charles is too.  
   
“Morning is good, yes…”  
   
“Are you sure you don’t want a pillow?” Charles can’t possibly be comfortable sleeping on his pointy shoulder all night.  
   
“I have a pillow. You.”  
   
“If you’re sure…” Erik puts both arms around him, and listens to Charles go to sleep. He really wants to do the same, but first he takes the time to find the pillow with metallic embroidery in the heap on the floor, levitate it carefully, and wedge it under Charles’s head. Charles doesn’t notice, but he will in the morning, and Erik falls asleep secure in the knowledge that Charles will, in fact, be comfortable.  
   
   
The first attempt, in the morning, proves to be, without argument, an unmitigated disaster.  
   
It begins well enough; Charles wakes up, sleepy and rumpled and beautiful, and smiles at Erik when he realizes that there’s a pillow under his head. He tries to say something that might be “thank you” or “I love you,” but it turns into a yawn, and Erik kisses him instead.  
   
That’s still amazing, really. He can wake up in the morning, and Charles will be there, and he can just lean over and kiss those lips if he wants to, and Charles will not only let him but will kiss him back. What alternate universe is this, in which he, Erik Lehnsherr, is allowed to be this happy?  
   
“If it’s an alternate universe,” Charles says plaintively, “then why is there still such a thing as eight o’clock in the morning?” _Erik, you know that you make me very happy as well, yes?_  
   
“Eight in the morning is not early, Charles.” _I know_. He does. He can feel it, when Charles touches him, thinks at him, smiles in his direction. Love. It’s fantastic.  
   
“Oh, yes, it is…”  
   
“Do you want me to make you tea?”  
   
“No. I want you to stay here. Naked. Didn’t we have plans for this morning?”  
   
Plans…oh, yes. Plans. “Are you awake enough for that?”  
   
“No, but maybe that’ll help.”  
   
“How, exactly?”  
   
“Can we just please get this over with?”  
   
“Oh, thank you, Charles.”  
   
Charles tosses the pillow at him. The embroidery glitters in the dim light of the bedroom. “You _do_ know what I mean. It’s early in the morning and this is hard.”  
   
Erik deflects the pillow with a thought, automatically. “I can think of other things that are—”  
   
“Finish that sentence and you’ll regret it,” Charles says. “Also, that’s cheating. If I can’t, neither can you.”  
   
“Fine. Go on. Seduce me.” Not that Charles needs to put forth much effort to achieve that particular goal.  
   
Except that, after a few minutes, it becomes evident that he does.  
   
It’s not that he doesn’t try. It’s that he keeps pausing to ask whether something is all right, or to check that he’s doing what Erik wants, or just to change positions. It’s that he doesn’t quite know where to put his hands when he’s not using them, and that he’s suddenly much more tentative about any sort of emphatic touching, as if he’s worrying that he might do something that Erik won’t like.  
   
The fifth or sixth time he stops, just on the brink of finding a good rhythm, to ask if everything is fine, Erik says, “You aren’t allowed to ask questions anymore.”  
   
“But how do I know—”  
   
“Stop that.”  
   
“I feel uncoordinated,” Charles grumbles into his thigh.  
   
“Just…relax?” Erik offers, and tries not to wonder how Charles has failed to learn _any_ of the physical cues that most people employ in these situations without thinking. Of course, he’s never had to.  
   
“This isn’t relaxing. Everything is…off balance. In my head.”  
   
“We manage to do this without using my abilities. All the time.” At this point, things are probably a lost cause, at least for this morning. Erik tries not to sound _too_ annoyed, because as frustrated as he is, it’s probably worse for Charles.  
   
“Not _all_ the time. You remember that time—”  
   
“Yes, I meant—”  
   
“And also the—”  
   
“Yes, all right, _most_ of the time. We manage to do this, without using my abilities, most of the time. You can do it without using yours.”  
   
At which point Charles tries to move a hand, and ends up putting an elbow into Erik’s ribs. It doesn’t really hurt, but Erik says “Ouch, Charles,” anyway.  
   
“I did warn you.”  
   
“I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you.”  
   
“See if I ever sleep with you again.” Charles flops down on the pillows, giving up.  
   
Erik puts an arm around him, reassuringly. “You wouldn’t last a day.”  
   
Charles sighs.  His shoulders feel tense under Erik’s arm, because Charles hates being terrible at things, especially when he’s usually good at them. But he doesn’t move away. “You’re probably right.”  
   
“We can try again tomorrow, then.”  
   
“Oh…do we have to?”  
   
“You said you would try. Once does not count as trying, Charles.”  
   
“Wait…you said tomorrow. Not tonight?”  
   
“I thought you might want to actually have sex, in some form, tonight.”  
   
“Ah. You wouldn’t last a day, either.”  
   
And Erik grins at him, because they both know it’s true.  
   
   
The second try, the next morning, starts off well.  
   
It’s a Saturday, and Erik wakes up to Charles kissing him, gently, with the edges of chilly morning sunlight peeking at them around the curtains. The touch of Charles’s lips against his skin feels amazing, and he tangles fingers in Charles’s messy hair, and Charles looks at him and smiles, and seems to guess what Erik has in mind without, actually, venturing _into_ Erik’s mind, which is certainly promising.  
   
Charles does things a little more confidently this time, probably having given thought to some of the positions and movements that Erik has liked on previous occasions. He’s still a little too careful, still thinking too much about what he ought to be doing, and Erik tries to help with a hand on his head and encouraging noises when something feels particularly good, and Charles relaxes a little and things get even better.  
   
Actually, the more Charles manages to relax, the more he lets himself be convinced that Erik is enjoying his attempts, the better things start to get.  
   
Maybe Charles isn’t really that bad at sex. Maybe he was just pretending the first time, except that Charles is terrible at keeping a straight face and could never have pulled that off without laughing.  
   
Apparently, Erik decides, as Charles employs his tongue in a particularly interesting manner, he learns quickly.  
   
He thinks, _there, do that again_ , and Charles does, and then moves his fingers a little bit in a way that makes pleasure swirl up between them, more pleasure than Erik thinks he can possibly be feeling without exploding _right now_ , and it’s an odd kind of pleasure, too, because a small part of him is watching in sparkling delight, and—  
   
Wait.  
   
 _Charles! Out!_  
   
 _…hmm? Oh—sorry!_  
   
Abruptly that other presence, the hum of secondhand desire, snaps out of his head, leaving behind a distinct feeling of guilt. Erik, despite knowing that it’s likely to put an end to this particular moment and leave them both terribly frustrated _again_ , can’t help laughing at the mental tone of chagrin.  
   
 _I really didn’t mean to, that time!_  
   
“You’re still not allowed to cheat, Charles, sorry…”  
   
“It wasn’t on purpose! You were being very distracting, and I was…distracted.” Charles stops what he’s doing and rolls to one side, apparently giving up in the face of Erik’s amusement. Erik just raises an eyebrow at him.  
   
Charles scowls. It’s not all that intimidating, all things considered. “This is quite difficult, you know.”  
   
“Control, Charles. Consider it part of your training.”  
   
“I don’t think I like you anymore,” Charles says.  
   
“You don’t actually mean that…” Which comes out closer to a question than he meant it to. But Charles’s tone had carried unfamiliar edges that are almost certainly stress-related, but that sting more than they should, and what will he do if Charles ever does, someday, mean that? It’s not as if he’s the same person he once was, these days.  
   
Charles looks at him, surprised, and then, after a second, says, “No, of course not, I’m sorry.” He says it in Erik’s head, too: _I am sorry. It’s…harder than you think. It’s like going deaf on purpose, and then staying that way, even when every part of your brain is shouting at you to hear the world around you. Like cutting off your own arm, knowing that you could have it back any time you wanted, but not letting yourself reattach it. Like—_  
   
Erik interrupts before the next gruesomely effective metaphor can take shape. _Then I’m sorry for asking_. He is, now that Charles has pointed out in vivid detail the magnitude of the request. _If you don’t want to—_  
   
 _No, it’s fine._ “Besides,” Charles says, and grins at him, “now you’ve made it a challenge.”  
   
 _I love you_. He wants to hear Charles say it back, which is irrational and needy and horrifying and true all the same.  
   
Charles looks at him affectionately. _I love you, too_. It’s warm and immediate and beyond all possibility of doubt.  
   
And maybe that moment would have led to a renewal of certain previously interesting activities, but suddenly there’s a loud crash from outside and a babble of excited voices, and Charles lets out a groan and pulls the closest pillow over his head. “Oh, really…”  
   
“What?”  
   
“I think Alex has just broken the greenhouse. It’s only ten in the morning…”  
   
“You have a greenhouse?”  
   
“Not anymore.”  
   
“Shouldn’t we go check on them?”  
   
“I haven’t even had _tea_ yet.” Charles shows no signs of reappearing from the depths of the bed, much less any willingness to go marching down to the grounds, in a tea-deprived state, in order to yell at the children.  
   
Erik says, to the pillow, “I’m sorry about your greenhouse.”  
   
“Well, it’s not a big loss. My mother had it built and then got distracted and never put any plants in it. So perhaps it can be useful for target practice, at least.” Charles sits up. His hair is sticking out in every possible direction. Erik catches himself wanting to run fingers through it, but that will just lead to them staying in bed, which is not going to be helpful in regards to the tragedy of the greenhouse.    
   
Charles sighs. “We should probably go.”  
   
“We should probably get dressed first.”  
   
“I don’t know, I rather like you being naked…”  
   
“You might. The children won’t.” _Besides, we can be naked again later._  
   
 _A good point_ , Charles concedes, and starts vaguely hunting for appropriate clothing. Erik, who is approximately five hundred times more efficient in the morning than Charles, manages to get himself dressed and presentable with enough time to run to the kitchen and come back with a mug smelling of lemon and herbs and steam while Charles is still looking for his left sock.  
   
“I love you,” Charles says to the mug.  
   
“Thank you.”  
   
“And you, too, of course.”  
   
“Should we go frighten them into cleaning up your mother’s greenhouse?”  
   
“I don’t think I’m particularly good at frightening anyone, but I’m quite certain you can. And if you can do it quickly, we can have the rest of the morning to be naked.”  
   
“Excellent,” Erik says brightly, and they venture outside together, into the morning cold.  
   
   
The third time, much later that night, actually seems to be going well.  
   
They’re back in the comfort of the bed, in the quiet of the night, and specks of silver glitter in the deep blue sky, hovering at the side of the window where Charles hasn’t quite closed the curtains all the way. They add a little bit of starlight to bare skin.  
   
Charles manages to not only behave himself in regards to telepathic intrusions, but to remember all the things he’d been doing in the morning that had worked so amazingly, and Erik wants him possibly more than ever before, because he knows now how hard this is for Charles, and he knows that Charles is doing this for him. Because he asked.  
   
“Charles,” he manages, voice slightly rough with desire, “I want—do you want to—”  
   
Charles lifts his head from between Erik’s legs, where he looks perfectly happy, and shakes damp unruly hair out of his eyes. “You want to have sex? The sort of sex that involves you, ah, inside me, I mean? Now?”  
   
“Yes _please_.”  
   
Charles blinks, and nods, and Erik takes that as assent and tugs him up and over onto the sheets, and Charles looks up at him and smiles a little, and opens his mouth as if he wants to say something, but Erik kisses him instead, because those slightly parted wet lips are irresistible.  
   
The stars wink at them from behind the curtains, and he can’t think anything except _yes_ and _beautiful_ and _heat_ , all the sensations for once purely physical and nearly overwhelming even so, and he can’t wait, he wants this, he _wants_ , and he lines them both up and pushes forward and _in_.  
   
And Charles makes a sound. A small, inadvertent sound that reaches into Erik’s chest and stabs little needles of ice into his heart.  
   
He suddenly finds it difficult to breathe. Not a surprise, really, considering that there are needles in his heart.  
   
“Charles?”  
   
“I’m all right, I’m fine, go on…”  
   
“Charles, tell me.” Erik knows pain, in all its sharp-edged and exotic varieties, and that was definitely pain, and it’s not a sound he wants to hear from Charles ever, ever again.  
   
“It’s really nothing…” But Charles isn’t quite looking at him. The stars, watching them from the window, aren’t happy anymore, either.  
   
“Please,” Erik says, and he’s not panicking, he’s not, because panic isn’t an emotion he lets himself feel, ever, and why won’t Charles look at him?  
   
“You asked me not to cheat,” Charles says after a second, which is so far from anything that Erik is expecting that all he can do is stare. Yes, he did ask that, but how is Charles staying out of their heads connected to—  
   
Charles looks up at him, quickly, and then away again. Erik’s confusion must be evident even at a glance, because Charles swallows and then offers, “The, ah, the thing is, you’re rather…large, and I’m…still not terribly experienced at this, and, well, it’s very easy to tell one’s own body to relax, mental suggestion can be very powerful in that regard, and I usually—”  
   
“Are you saying that _I’ve been hurting you every time we have sex?”_ Now he really can’t breathe. Those aren’t little needles in his heart anymore. Spears, maybe. Or pickaxes. Something much larger, with pointy edges, digging away.  
   
“No! No, listen, Erik, I’m trying to say that you _aren’t._ Er, not usually. That’s all, really.”  
   
“Why didn’t you tell me that you were—?” Were what? In pain? Not in pain? Not admitting to being in pain?  
   
“Well… because I knew you’d react like this?”  
   
“Charles, you—” But he stops, because blue eyes are gazing up at him now, finally, with concern, which is ridiculous because Erik is the one of them who is fine.  
   
Charles blinks, twice, and on the second blink a sliver of suspicious brightness detaches itself from one long eyelash and settles on pale skin. Erik reaches out, and brushes it away. It leaves the end of his fingertip wet. No wonder Charles hasn’t been looking at him.  
   
 _Charles_ , he thinks simply, _I’m so sorry_. Except that Charles isn’t in his head, and so doesn’t hear the apology. Because one of them had asked him not to do that. Whose idiotic idea had that been, again?  
   
“Erik…” _Can I—?_ Charles sounds a little hesitant, as if he thinks that Erik’s entirely stupid request might still be in effect at this particular moment.  
   
 _Yes, of course, come here, please, of course you can_. That thought comes out a little jumbled, but Charles seems to understand, because the warmth of his presence spills reassuringly into both their thoughts, solid and generous as ever, brushed with the plush texture of wool sweaters and the familiar tastes of tea and candied pineapple.  
   
Erik tries to make his apology with his thoughts, tries to be as welcome, as open, as he possibly can: Charles can see into every corner of Erik, every dark place, every once-shadowed space that Charles has helped light up, if he wants to. If he needs that. Charles can have anything Erik might have to offer, if it will help remove that lonely little hesitance between them.  
   
 _Oh, thank you, that’s much better._  
   
It is. For both of them.  
   
For a minute, still naked and tangled up in each other, they don’t speak. They don’t need to; it’s just enough that they’re together, in every way they can be. Erik can hear Charles’s heartbeat, not a perfect match but a complement, filling in the spaces between his own.  
   
After a while, Charles says, _I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have. I just didn’t think it was important enough to—_  
   
 _Charles—_ Erik wants to be exasperated by this; the annoyance fights the contentment that Charles is projecting, and loses. _Of course you’re important, why would you think—_  
   
 _Well, this—I mean you, not just the sex, though that is delightful—you’re certainly worth a minor bit of discomfort, especially when it’s really something I can handle in my head quite easily. I decided that you were worth that a long time ago._  
   
Erik finds himself bereft of words, at that.  
   
Charles, naturally, still has some. _Besides, I didn’t want to worry you. We might never have had sex again._  
   
 _That’s…possibly true_ , Erik has to admit.  
   
 _Well, then._  
   
 _I love you, Charles. Please worry me, if you need to_. Not the most eloquent profession of devotion he’s ever made, but he feels Charles smile, understanding.  
   
 _I love you, as well. And I promise that I will tell you if something like this, er, comes up, again_. Charles looks at him a little ruefully, but the awful too-bright shine of uncried tears has already disappeared, and so Erik finds it easier to breathe when Charles adds, _I truly am sorry; I didn’t mean to interrupt us. I was enjoying myself, you know._  
   
 _You were?_ He doesn’t quite believe that, as much as he wants to.  
   
 _Well, up until that last bit, yes. Very much so_. Charles looks up at him, speculatively. _Have you noticed, we are still naked…?_  
   
So they are. Erik leans down to kiss him; Charles responds, with accompanying mental images that leave absolutely no question about the direction of his thoughts. Erik bites, gently, at the curve of one soft lip, because he knows that Charles likes that. _Could we…could you perhaps enjoy yourself again?_  
   
 _I think so, yes…_  
   
 _You THINK so?_ He has to be sure. They both have to be sure.  
   
Charles wiggles, experimentally, beneath him. The welcoming blue of his eyes exactly matches the blue of the sheets, spread out around them across the enticing expanse of bed. The starlight, appearing from hiding at the edge of the window, catches in his hair like an invitation. _Very well, then: I KNOW so._  
   
Erik kisses him again, and says “All right,” into the corner of Charles’s mouth. _If you need to...do anything, to help, then do it. Anything you need._ There’s one last apology somewhere in those words; Charles will find it and hear it, he knows.  
   
“I think…” _I think I’m all right, actually._ Charles runs a hand along Erik’s arm, tracing the curve of tense muscle beneath smooth skin. Every sensation prickles into aroused awareness at that touch.  
   
 _We could continue where we left off, if you’d like._  
   
Erik would certainly like nothing better than that, but he says, “Wait,” and carefully slides downward and tries to apologize again, this time with his mouth. Charles actually gasps out loud, evidently not expecting that, but it’s a sound of pleasure, not anything else, and Erik continues, teasing him, tasting him, using tongue and teeth and everything else that will make Charles shiver beneath him.  
   
He definitely needs to do this more, he decides. Almost always it’s Charles who offers, impatient and enthusiastic and eager to make Erik happy, because that’s enough to make both of them _very_ happy. But that’s not really fair, and suddenly it feels a lot like he’s been taking Charles for granted. He’s been assuming that Charles has been enjoying himself, instead of making sure.  
   
 _Oh, Erik, that’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think? If I weren’t enjoying myself, you’d know. It isn’t as if you’ve been asking me to do anything that I’m not perfectly happy to do._  
   
 _That isn’t the point_. The point is that, out of the two of them, Erik has more experience and ought to be the one making sure that it’s good, that it’s perfect, for Charles, who deserves perfection anyway. Also, why can Charles still talk? Apparently Erik isn’t putting forth enough effort.  
   
 _I approve of your efforts. And—oh! do that again!—you do NOT have more experience than I do._  
   
 _Twice, you said. I do remember that_. He shifts position slightly, testing a different angle, and Charles actually lets out a little whimper in response, which is absolutely _fantastic_ and Erik will have to remember this one for every single next time, ever.  
   
 _Yes, and…two is…more than one._ Charles sounds breathless, even in their heads, and Erik feels rather proud of himself.  
   
And also a little puzzled, because he _did_ tell Charles about—  
   
 _Yes…you did…but the, er, gentlemen of the evening…those don’t count. How many, out of that number, have you wanted to wake up with, in the morning?_  
   
 _You know that. Only you._  
   
 _So…technically…I have more experience with this than you do._  
   
 _It’s not a—that isn’t—_ Erik gives up trying to argue the point; he isn’t going to win that one. Instead he says, _I love you, Charles_ , and for good measure demonstrates it by going back to that particular angle that Charles seems to like so much, the one that sends sparks of wordless delight through both their thoughts.  
   
 _And I…love you, too…come up here, I want you with me._  
   
 _Are you sure?_  
   
 _Yes._  
   
There’s lube in the drawer of the bedside table, in a metal bottle because Charles thinks of things like that, and he’s probably using too much, because it gets everywhere, spilling across silk sheets and bare skin, but that doesn’t matter; he needs this to be good, for Charles, for both of them.  
   
 _All right?_  
   
Charles closes his eyes, swallows, opens them. Meets Erik’s gaze directly, this time, and smiles.  
   
 _Wonderful._  
   
When they move, Erik tries hard to be careful, not pushing too hard, watching blue eyes for any hint of discomfort or hesitation. There isn’t any, not that he can see or feel, but he can’t help worrying even so.  
   
 _…Erik?_  
   
 _Are you still all right?_  
   
Charles now sounds slightly amused. _I’m not complaining, you understand, but a bit faster might be nice_.  
   
The familiar cheerful impatience is, actually, reassuring, and when Charles lifts both legs to wrap around Erik’s hips, the touch of skin on skin is even more so. _Faster, you said?_  
   
 _Oh—like that, yes…_  
   
 _Like that?_  
   
 _Yes—!_  
   
It doesn’t take long, after that. Not after Erik finds the spot that makes Charles forget all his words in sheer ecstasy, and feels the white-hot pleasure of it in the tightening of Charles’s body around him, in the look on Charles’s face, in the brilliant emotions that burst through their joined thoughts and pull him over into shared joy, too.  
   
Charles keeps his eyes open, hiding nothing, and the blue of them in that moment is a memory that Erik will keep protected and safe, like a priceless treasure, forever.  
   
Several perfect and sweaty minutes later, Erik says, “Did you really use the phrase ‘gentlemen of the evening’ to describe my past sexual partners?”  
   
And Charles starts laughing so hard he can’t answer out loud. _I’m sorry, I couldn’t think of anything better! I was a bit preoccupied, if you recall._  
   
 _Enjoyably, I hope._ Erik wants to watch him forever like this, happy and exhausted and amused and clearly not in any pain at all, and so the only appropriate thing to add is, “You still aren’t any more experienced at sex than I am, Charles.”  
   
 _Indeed. To all of that_. “Clearly we should gather more experience together, then.” _Was it enjoyable for you, too?_  
   
 _It was wonderful. You are wonderful._ “I…wouldn’t be opposed to that.”  
   
 _Love you!_ “So…would you be opposed to it now?”  
   
 _And I love you_. “You can _move?_ ”  
   
“Well…give me five minutes.”  
   
“Ten. And I promise to do what you’re thinking about. Again.”  
   
“Deal,” Charles says, and grins at him, and Erik decides that he’s entirely fine with them not being flawless at sex quite yet, because gathering experience together, with Charles, tangled in silk sheets and starlight, sounds like the best idea in the world.  
   
Ten minutes, he thinks, and grins back at Charles. Maybe only seven.


End file.
